300,000 people displaced by the fighting in Sri Lanka are held by the government in de facto detention camps. They cannot leave the camps, where conditions are “appalling” according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
Call on the Sri Lanka…n government to immediately allow the displaced civilians freedom of movement: those who wish to leave the camps should be free to do so. Article and petition.
Aung San Suu Kyi is found guilty and sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest. Full article.
The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will… not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems. CHRIS HEDGES
When respondents were asked what they consider to be the biggest threat to the nation of Pakistan, 11 per cent of the population identified the Taliban fighters, who have been blamed for scores of deadly bomb attacks across the country in recent years.
Another 18 per cent said that they believe that the greatest threat came from neighbouring India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan since partition in 1947.
But an overwhelming number, 59 per cent of respondents, said the greatest threat to Pakistan right now is, in fact, the US.
“i am the only one that got through
the others died where ever they fell
it was an ambush
they came up from all sides
give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
i’ve seen devils coming up from the ground
i’ve seen… hell upon this earth
the next will be chemical but they will never learn”
“By far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong-color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor encounters racial profiling, but for decades whole communities have been effectively “profiled” for the… suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor, thanks to the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” theory of policing popularized by Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, and his police chief William Bratton.” Full article.
“We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of t…he nation’s entertainment. The mainstream culture is filled with the most gruesome forms of misogyny, and pornography is now a multibillion-dollar industry — much of it controlled by mainstream U.S. corporations”. Full article.
“The Muslims I Know” was selected by MuslimFest 2009. This year’s theme was “Creative Activism”. The film was screened on August 1, 2009, 6.30 pm at the Rogers Theater, Living Arts Center, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The response from a mostly Muslim audience was great.
Already, Barack Obama has approved adding 20,000 more active duty troops to the 1,473,900 already on duty. Without public protest, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan is certain to continue. However, if the people who poured into the streets to… protest Bush’s war are truly opposed to war, then they should also make an appearance in those same streets now that the war is Obama’s. Full article.
The Taliban may have been decapitated in Pakistan, but their success is not about the leadership of any one man. Full article.
When ill-conceived military adventures look doomed, their advocates tend to grow more strident about honour, especially if it can be upheld to the last drop of other people’s blood. Richard Nixon’s “peace with honour” primarily co…nsisted of devastating Cambodia in addition to Vietnam; for some years now, maintaining honour in Afghanistan has amounted to little more than the Talibanisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan. Full article.
“obama’s wars” organized by rochester against war, with PAUL KAWIKA MARTIN (National Political Director, Peace Action in Washington, DC) and SNEHAL SHINGAVI (Author and Professor of South Asian Literature, University of Texas – Austin).
tea at our house, after the event.
hilarious!
Tortured Logic – a Project of the ACLU: Send this video to Attorney General Holder and demand that he appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate those who committed and authorized torture — wherever the evidence leads. Watch video.
The Finger Lakes region has been named the top lakeside retreat in the world by the editors of Shermans Travel. Full article.
